“And she--is just like the others,” said Lady Curtis faintly, “a little better you said, not so vulgar? Heaven help us! that I should speak so of my son’s--no, Mr. Durant, not yet, I _cannot_ call her my son’s bride. Something may come in the way, something must be thought of--” “I don’t think you will find anything. I have used every argument;--and to tell the truth I do not know that I am quite sure, in my own mind--of course I did not say this to Arthur--I am not quite convinced in my own thoughts--” “Of what, Mr. Durant?” Lady Curtis said this anxiously in front of him, and Lucy breathed it half under her breath behind. He looked at the mother, but turned his chair a little so as to come nearer the daughter, who eluded him, gliding still a little further back. “Well,” he said, “you may not be pleased, but I must speak according to my conscience. I would give a year of my life to get Arthur free, you know that--” “What are you going to tell us?” cried Lady Curtis, clasping her white hands. Lucy did not say anything, but leant forward, so intent that when he again turned to her, she did not as usual withdraw. “It is just this,” he said, sinking his voice; and the evening air seemed to make a visible droop towards the darkening to increase the alarming effect: “that I dare not on my honour say any more to Arthur on the subject. He is a gentleman; I cannot even to save him from misery bid him break his word.” “Good God!” cried Lady Curtis, starting to her feet, and her excitement was so strong that the exclamation may be forgiven her. “His word! when his whole career and happiness are at stake--to a creature like that!” “I knew that was what you were going to say,” came to him, in a sigh, from the dim light in the window, against which, herself a shadow, Lucy was. And this, though there was no word of encouragement in it, gave Durant strength. “I understand your feeling,” he said, addressing her mother, “I thought the same when I went there; but Lady Curtis--” “Don’t speak to me, don’t speak to me!” she cried, “they have entrapped you too; you have encouraged him in his folly;--his word!” She walked up and down the room in a fit of impatience, her hands clasped, and inarticulate moans came from her unawares. The firelight seemed to get stronger and warmer as the daylight waned, and it was against this glow that they saw her figure in her excitement. They--for Lucy kept still in the window putting up her hand furtively to dry her eyes, not joining herself to her mother. She had put herself silently, he felt it, on his side. In another minute Lady Curtis sat down again, dropping impatiently into her chair. “Well!” she said almost harshly, “how about his word?”